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Digest

Chilling hint of bomb attempts came in April

By TIMES WIRES
Published July 5, 2007

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LONDON

"Those who cure you are going to kill you." That, a British priest said Wednesday, was the cryptic warning made to him in Jordan by a purported al-Qaida chief months before the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow that have been linked to six foreign Muslims working as doctors in Britain. Canon Andrew White, a senior Anglican priest who works in Baghdad, said he met the man privately April 18. He meets regularly with extremists in an attempt to calm sectarian violence. He said religious leaders told him the man was an al-Qaida leader who traveled from Syria. "It was like meeting the devil, " he said. "He talked of destroying Britain and the United States and then said, 'Those who cure you are going to kill you.' " White said he did not understand the threat's significance at the time. He said he passed the general threat along to Britain's Foreign Office, but did not mention the comment.

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

Fiery cleric caught trying to escape

After months of whipping his followers into a frenzy of antigovernment sentiment, the head cleric at a radical mosque was caught Wednesday trying to slip out of his besieged compound clad in a head-to-toe veil known as a burqa, police said. The arrest of Maulana Abdul Aziz came as police and paramilitary troops backed by armored vehicles and helicopters surrounded the mosque, which Tuesday was the scene of a shootout that left as many as 16 people dead. More than 1, 100 of Aziz's followers surrendered to the authorities Wednesday. By nightfall, hundreds of students remained barricaded inside the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, some vowing to seek "martyrdom."

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

Bomb kills six Canadian soldiers

Six Canadian soldiers and an Afghan interpreter died Wednesday after their armored vehicle was struck by a bomb on a road in southern Afghanistan. The deaths quickly renewed calls from Canadian politicians for an end to Canada's military mission in Afghanistan. Brig. Gen. Tim Grant, the Canadian commander in Afghanistan, said the explosion occurred about 12 miles southwest of Kandahar when the troops, part of a convoy, were returning to base after an operation with the Afghan national army.

SOUTHERN FRANCE

Police intercept car bomb in van

Police seized a van packed with explosives in southeastern France, thwarting a Basque separatist attack, Spain's interior minister said Wednesday. Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said the group ETA, which has killed more than 800 people since 1968, was planning an attack during Spain's state of the nation parliamentary debate Wednesday.

MEXICO

Landslide buries bus, passengers

Rescue crews dug furiously Wednesday to get to survivors of a landslide that buried a bus carrying at least 40 to 60 passengers on a mountainous road in central Mexico, officials said. The bus was headed to Tehuacan when the rain-soaked side of a mountain gave way about 7 a.m. Wednesday, said German Garcia, operations director for the state civil protection department. Garcia said workers had yet to reach the bus some 12 hours after the accident and that rescue efforts would be suspended at nightfall because of expected rain.